Modern communication devices typically have mechanisms for participating in messaging service protocols such as text messaging by short messaging service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS) instant messaging (IM) applications, IP messaging, email, and the like. Typically, each of these protocols remains a separate and distinct application on a user equipment. Further, many of these protocols employ distinct communications hardware backbones that are distinct and not supportive of cross protocol interactions. As a result, many communications on modern user equipment, commonly referred to as “texting” (which includes SMS, MMS, IM, IP messaging, email, voice snippets, emoticons, visual messaging, and many others), employ multiple protocols, numerous inboxes, outboxes, and commonly third party software applications to facilitate some level of simplifying and unifying the numerous communication avenues.
The negative impact of overlapping and cumbersome “texting” platforms (e.g., any combination of the numerous forms of text/video/voice communications other than a traditional voice phone call) on mobile devices has not gone without notice by device manufacturers, service providers, and third party application developers. Third party developers often are the most nimble and quickest to respond to attempts at fulfilling a long-felt need such as a unified messaging platform to support “texting”. However, many of these third party developers have lacked access to aspects of the hardware and core software of the myriad devices, systems, and protocols for texting. As a result, many third party applications are not robust enough, broad enough, or implemented in an attractive manner and therefore fail to fulfill the long-felt needs of the masses.
Device manufacturers and service providers generally are not as nimble as smaller third party application developers and are more constrained in business decision making and rarely rush to put out product that is friendly to a competitor's product, service, or protocol. As a result, solutions for consumer's long-felt needs may go unfulfilled by device manufacturers and service providers despite these entities having better access to the subsystems and core engineering that would enable them to develop a more ideal system/device in a less competitive environment.
As mobile device technologies becomes more ubiquitous and begin merging with more traditional computer manufacture and development, products and services are appearing for mobile devices that blur the lines between mobile and traditional notions of non-mobile devices. Interestingly, many business practices have also adapted to the coalescing mobile computing environment. One result of this is more interaction between device manufacturers and service providers in development and standards setting environments. This is also true across competing platforms where the realization is that consumers will tend to gravitate to a less limiting provider where possible and feasible. Thus, to keep customers, making devices and services competitor-friendly has become almost a survival requirement.
The resulting more cooperative development environment is yielding improved services and devices for customers. One area of improvement that will be of great benefit to mobile device users is the move toward unification of messaging systems. There is clearly a desire and long-felt need to simplify and effectively coalesce the plurality of overlapping “texting” communications systems. This is also especially true in cross platform and cross provider conditions. Further, support of legacy devices will be well received by consumers.
One problematic aspect of traditional messaging environments on mobile devices is separate protocols for media rich and non-media rich messaging. For example, SMS can be used to send a text message while separately MMS can be used to send a photo. Moreover, even where some third party application has cobbled together systems for sending media rich content contemporaneously with non-media rich messages selection systems for choosing content can be cumbersome. In another aspect, traditional selection mechanisms employed on conventional non-mobile systems frequently rely on external hardware human interface devices, for example mice and keyboards. In a mobile environment these external systems can be difficult at best to employ. Further, where internal selection systems are employed (e.g., jog dials, touch screens, etc.) these systems have frequently not been optimized through a soft user interface to provide truly efficient selection systems for content available to the mobile device.
Of notable exception are some modern portable music systems that have started to address rapid content selection employing elegant human interface systems. However, even these systems generally only support “drill-down” selection techniques. These drill-down systems may be efficient in these particular devices because the menu levels traversed are limited in scope and generally well known to a user after only a short indoctrination period allowing nearly rote navigation. Selection of content in mobile device systems is an important consideration, and improving efficiency and transparency is highly desirable. Clearly there is still much room for improvement in mobile device environments for user access systems that can facilitate efficient and intuitive comprehension/location of user accessible content in the fast paced mobile messaging environment of the modern mobile device.